Gadget

A smartphone user can get tripped up easily when in motion as today’s smartphones look for WiFi networks to connect to and oftentimes aren’t able to fully connect to such signals, meaning a phone’s broadband connection can be in limbo. Nothing can be more frustrating than having connectivity issues like this when your GPS software is trying to determine which route has the least traffic and you need to decide whether to go right or left at a busy intersection.

Poor service quality which can be caused by the arbitrary switching to an inferior network leads to churn and churn costs a carrier money. Quality issues don’t just center on data as quite often a challenge for carriers is providing voice service levels which are solid enough to keep a customer happy.

I’ve been using Sonos as an in-home streaming solution for many years and since it relies on WiFi it provides infinite levels of flexibility in speaker placement. However, since it is wireless, there are times when things don’t work perfectly. I've found that sometimes, signals have trouble getting through mirrors and other obstacles - typically made of metal.

Moreover, you will have to reboot your components every now and then to ensure they work properly.

Will the combination of the ARM processor coupled with 14 nm FinFET process thanks to Samsung change the dynamics of the mobile processor market? That is certainly the logic being put forward by Mark Hibben at Seeking Alpha.

As he explains:

The term FinFET stands for Fin Field Effect Transistor because one of its structural features is a vertical silicon fin.

After spending a good deal of time with the iPhone 6 Plus, I feel confident enough to point out its pros and cons. Hopefully you’ll find this list useful when making a decision regarding a smartphone purchase.

Pictured above: iPhone 6 and big brother/sister iPhone 6 Plus

Perhaps the best feature of the phone is the superior antenna, thanks in part to the larger size of the phone and technological improvements by Apple like support for 802.11ac. If you used a 5s or smaller device you have likely experienced the challenge of seeing a WiFi signal but not being able to connect with it in a meaningful way. In other words, the phone is receiving a signal from an access point but doesn't have a strong enough signal to establish a connection of any value.

The enterprise mobility management space is bustling with activity thanks in large-part to the explosion of devices which companies must support. BYOD is something companies had no choice to accept – but this doesn’t mean they can’t manage the devices which are logging onto corporate systems and using company wireless networks. In fact, more than ever, they have to focus more on potential BYOD threats.

The reports stated that Apple applies 25 kilograms (slightly more than 55 pounds) of force to an iPhone 6 Plus to test flex. What does 55 pounds mean in context? Using our Instron, we found that it's approximately the force required to break three pencils.

Basically, as I have been saying all along, bendgate is a tremendous amount of BS.

For the first time ever, Apple introduced two phones of different sizes at once. This is a huge deal for the company which kept the original phone screen size until the iPhone 5. The good news it is potentially easy to decide between the two devices – based upon what you do most.

What makes the decision a bit easier is the fact that Apple makes no iPad smaller than the mini which does not fit in suit or pants pockets.

At TMC’s Wearable Tech Expo event this past summer in NYC I had a chance to meet Katy Kasmai who heads up UbiTech, the company behind the Google Glass Hackathon in New York. This next event takes place September 6-7, 2014 – basically next week and has a bunch of prizes associated with it such as $1,000 from Augmate for an enterprise supply chain application.

I had a chance to interview Katy at the Wearable Tech Expo conference where she explained how she got involved with this market and went on to talk about some important points regarding Glass and associated applications.

Just as the iPhone helped turn phones into application-centric devices, Google Glass looks like it will be the product that makes many of us want to wear smart glasses.